So, the Godmother. She takes ragged, smudged things and turns them into beautiful Princesses. Why, I don’t know. A hobby? A calling? An obsession? Is she righting the wrongs done to her when she was young?

When I first started here, I had a fantasy. That the Godmother would pluck me out of the row of humpbacked, squinting Seamstresses and make me, too, a beautiful Princess. With a gown sewn by…well, by the poor wenches too old or ugly to catch the Godmother’s eye.